"She was strong in a gentle and caring way. Pamela would have tried to make the bad thing go away," Horowitz, 51, told jurors in a Martinez courtroom. "Pamela would not try to lash out and hurt. Kind, loving -- that's Pamela."

Horowitz, a prominent criminal-defense attorney, was on the witness stand for about an hour-and-a-half today. He wore a pained expression but at times smiled slightly as he recalled how his wife of 11 years, whom he called "incredibly detail-oriented," oversaw the construction of their new home on Hunsaker Canyon Road in Lafayette.

Meanwhile, the couple were staying in a mobile home on the property. That's where, on Oct. 15, Horowitz walked in to find his wife's bloody body. He said he dropped his bags of groceries and fell to the floor.

For a moment, Horowitz said, he thought he was "looking at a crime-scene photo." But, he said, after a second, "I knew it was real."

Even though Horowitz could tell his wife was dead, he checked for her pulse, he testified. He said he called 911, left the line open and then went outside and screamed, "Oh, no, Pamela! I love you!"

Neighbors testified Monday that his screams lasted for about a minute and sounded as if they were coming from a wounded animal.

When prosecutor Harold Jewett asked how he knew she was dead, Horowitz said, "She looked sort of waxen. There was so much blood. Her hand was like in a claw shape, swollen."

Dyleski, 16, at the time of the slaying, has pleaded not guilty to charges of special-circumstances murder and burglary in the killing of Vitale, a former high-tech executive who left her job to help Horowitz with his law practice.

Now 17, Dyleski is being tried as an adult and could face life in prison, but not the death penalty, because he was a minor at the time the crime was committed.

Investigators focused on Dyleski, who also lived on Hunsaker Canyon Road, after learning that he and a teenage friend allegedly had used credit-card information belonging to neighbors to order marijuana-growing equipment.

Horowitz described his usual morning routine: He would drink a cup of coffee, have some oatmeal and run virus checks on both his and Vitale's computers. Typically, Vitale would search for Horowitz's name on the computer to look for news stories connected to cases he was working on, he said.

Horowitz said he took pains not to bring outside contaminants into their home because Vitale suffered from allergies. Whenever he took his dogs out for a walk, he said, he would change into "ranch clothes," putting his regular clothes into a plastic bin near the front door.

On the day of the killing, Horowitz had two meetings in Lafayette and Oakland. He ran some errands and came back to find his wife dead. She had been planning to go with a friend to a ballet performance at UC Berkeley that night, Horowitz said.

Earlier today, Contra Costa County sheriff's criminalist Alex Taflya testified that he found several pieces of moulding and two flashlights with apparent blood stains on them. Although those items may have been used to attack Vitale, none was the weapon that directly caused her death, Taflya said.

Jewett has told jurors that the evidence would show that although Vitale's skull wasn't fractured, her head was struck repeatedly, and that she died as a result of bleeding in her brain.